Jefferson County Democratic Party Official Says Liberal Group Made McConnell Recording

An attorney for Shawn Reilly, one of the members of the liberal group Progress Kentucky who was implicated in the McConnell office recording, says his client did nothing wrong when he and another member of the group went to the Senator's Louisville campaign office in early February.

Attorney Ted Shouse is quoted in the Courier-Journal as saying neither Reilly or Curtis Morrison, another member of Progress Kentucky, broke any laws.

Jefferson County Democratic Party official Jacob Conway told Kentucky Public Radio earlier this week that he overheard Reilly and Morrison bragging about recording a McConnell campaign re-election strategy meeting Feb. 2. According to Conway, the two men said they were in a hallway outside the office when they made the secret recording, which they later turned over to Mother Jones.

The fallout continues from a secret audio recording made of a re-election strategy meeting at the Louisville office of Senator Mitch McConnell. A Jefferson County Democratic Party official says two members of the liberal group Progress Kentucky bragged to him about making a secret recording of the meeting.

Jacob Conway has told reporters the names of the two individuals who allegedly made the claim. However, WKU Public Radio is not airing the names of the two because, so far, they haven’t been reached for comment.

Conway says the two bragged to him about recording the strategy meeting from a hallway outside the Louisville office. Conway insists that neither the local or state Democratic party had any part in the incident.

The FBI spent an hour in McConnell’s office Wednesday investigating the case.

The liberal political magazine Mother Jones published audio excerpts from the meeting, in which a McConnell staffer is heard discussing strategies the campaign would use against actress Ashley Judd, who was considering a challenge to McConnell, but who has since said she won’t run. In the recording, the staffer says the campaign would use Judd’s admissions of depression and suicidal thoughts against her.

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The campaign manager for Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell says the FBI spent about an hour in the Senator’s Louisville office Wednesday, investigating a secret recording made of McConnell and staffers.

Audio from a re-election strategy meeting was published by the liberal news magazine Mother Jones.

The Herald-Leader reports campaign manager Jesse Benton says staffers have given pertinent information to the FBI, which has asked the campaign not to discuss details of its investigation. Benton told the paper that he thought the FBI had several leads in the case, and that he hoped whoever was responsible for making the recording would be prosecuted.

Kentucky allows individuals to record conversations to which they are a party without informing the other parties that they are doing so.

McConnell said the recording was an example of “Nixonian” tactics on the left, and that those behind the secret recording used “Watergate style tactics.”

Mother Jones says it received the recording from someone who requested anonymity. Mother Jones published audio excerpts from the McConnell meeting, in which the Kentucky Republican is heard comparing the early stages of the Senate campaign to a game of “whac-a-mole”.

A staffer also discussed strategies the McConnell campaign would use against actress Ashley Judd, who was considering a challenge to McConnell, but who has since said she won’t run. In the recording, the staffer says the campaign would use Judd’s admissions of depression and suicidal thoughts against her, and would also make issue of Judd’s attitudes towards what the staffer called “traditional Christianity.”

Two national Democratic groups are ramping up their fight against Senator Mitch McConnell's re-election efforts.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is targeting McConnell for his votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Violence against Women Act.

And the Senate Majority PAC, run by Majority Leader Harry Reid, has launched a website about McConnell, who they call Beltway Mitch. It criticizes McConnell for his refusal to compromise on sequestration. The website notes sequestration is costing many public school districts in Kentucky.